DCLPublicationDate: 11/1/96 DCLID: GEN-96-22 AwardYear: 1997-1998 Summary: Changes and enhancements to the 1997-98 application processing system. Action Letter #5 November 1996 GEN-96-22 SUMMARY: Changes and enhancements to the 1997-98 application processing system. Dear Colleague: This Action Letter describes changes to the 1997-98 application processing system, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), the Renewal FAFSA, the Student Aid Report (SAR), and the Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR). These are the major improvements that we have made: We distributed FAFSAs beginning mid-October, earlier than ever. We included a return postcard with the FAFSA, to notify students the application was received. We have redesigned the Renewal Application. We have redesigned the SAR. We added a new reject for situations when reported date of birth is the same as the current year to improve the accuracy of data matches. We revised the edits for Worksheet #3 income to improve accuracy. We added new flags to improve the reporting of National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) match results and changes to NSLDS data. We changed the system to allow students to make address and institution changes with a telephone call to the Federal Student Aid Information Center. We made a number of enhancements to the FAFSA Express software to make it easier for students to use. FREE APPLICATION FOR FEDERAL STUDENT AID (FAFSA) WE DISTRIBUTED FAFSAS BEGINNING MID-OCTOBER, EARLIER THAN EVER. As announced previously, the FAFSA distribution process for 1997-98 has been enhanced through use of a toll-free number (1-800-284-2788) that allows a school to enter the school code and place an order. This service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. After placing an order, schools can call the same number to check on the status of their orders. Alternatively, FAFSAs can also be ordered by faxing in a scannable form (see Dear Colleague Letter ANN-96-4 for more information). The color of the 1997-98 FAFSA is green. We have not made any changes to the questions and sections, which are organized in the same sequence as in 1996-97. The date fields have been expanded to allow for the new century, although we preprinted the "19" for all date fields except question 31: "Date you expect to receive your degree/certificate." CHANGES TO WORKSHEET #3 AND UNTAXED INCOME Questions 64 and 76, formerly titled "Total from Worksheet #3," have been renamed "1996 Amount from Line 5, Worksheet #3." This issue is discussed further in the "Central Processing System" section. The Untaxed Income items collected on Worksheet #2 include two clarifications: FAFSA filers are instructed to include VA Educational Work-Study Allowances in the amount reported as other untaxed income (questions 63 and 75). This income was previously treated as a resource in determining loan amounts. Applicants are also instructed not to include contributions to, and payments from, flexible spending arrangements (e.g., cafeteria plans, medical savings accounts) as other untaxed income. RETURN POSTCARD IN APPLICATION PACKAGES WE INCLUDED A RETURN POSTCARD WITH THE FAFSA, TO NOTIFY STUDENTS THE APPLICATION WAS RECEIVED BY A FAFSA PROCESSOR. The postcard instructs the student to fill in his or her home address, affix a 20-cent stamp, and enclose the card in the return envelope with the application. When the application or Renewal Application is received, the FAFSA processor will stamp the card with the receipt date and location, and mail it back to the student. In order for this notification to work, the student must complete the address correctly and remember the postage stamp. The postcard offers a simple method for students to be assured that their form has been received, although it does not guarantee that the form will be processed if another problem exists. The processors examine each form to make sure the student's signature and social security number are present. If either is not present, the form will be returned unprocessed with the unmailed postcard and a letter explaining why the form could not be processed. RENEWAL FREE APPLICATION FOR FEDERAL STUDENT AID WE HAVE REDESIGNED THE RENEWAL APPLICATION. The Renewal FAFSA preprints much of the student's 1996-97 application data and allows the student to update the information submitted in 1996-97, if necessary, and enter new income information. Please see 1997-98 Action Letter #1 (GEN-96-16) for a description of how the process works and a schedule for dates when institutions and students will receive their 1997-98 Renewal FAFSAs. The Renewal FAFSA was redesigned to improve the appearance and ease-of-use for students, and to facilitate imaging and scanning. Instead of a three-column layout, the 1997-98 Renewal Application has an enhanced format that allows more space for students to write in new or updated responses. The response fields resemble those on the FAFSA, i.e., multiple-response questions, such as enrollment status, allow the student to darken an oval in response rather than referring to instructions to locate and transfer a code. Students will need to refer to the instructions for coded responses for only two fields: course of study and type of degree/certificate. The Renewal Application printed by the CPS will be on 11 x 17-inch white paper. STUDENT AID REPORT WE HAVE REDESIGNED THE SAR using a format similar to the Renewal Application with special emphasis on adapting the document for imaging and scanning technology. As in previous years, the data elements on the SAR are ordered and numbered to correspond with data elements on the FAFSA and Renewal FAFSA. The SAR will be printed on green paper, 8 « by 11-inches, which can easily be distinguished from the Renewal FAFSA. The design of Part 1 of the SAR, the SAR Information Acknowledgement, and the format and position of the Financial Aid Administrator (FAA) Information Box, have not changed from 1996-97. SARs may be either 4 or 5 pages (sheets), depending on whether the student's application is rejected or nonrejected. As in previous years, a nonrejected SAR will consist of five pages with the Information Review Form (IRVF) as Part 2, and a calculated EFC. A student whose application data are rejected as incomplete or inconsistent will receive a four-page SAR with the Information Request Form (IRQF) as Part 2. The IRQF requires the student to correct or verify certain information on the SAR, which is identified by an arrow printed in the questioned field. In 1997-98, the student must write a new answer in the boxes or ovals that appear to the right of the arrow to make a correction. To verify that the previous answer was correct, the student would re-write the same answer in the answer spaces. The new design does not include check-off boxes to verify answers. For FAFSA Express submissions, the signature procedures used in 1996-97 will remain the same: Students who submit their applications electronically using the software may print and mail in a Signature Page if they have a printer available, or they will receive a "Reject 16 SAR" if they are unable to print and mail in a Signature Page or their Signature Page cannot be processed. Reject 16 means that the student's signature was not present on the application. This type of SAR incorporates two additional certification statements in the signature block that the student must sign and submit on Part 2: the Statement of Educational Purpose and the Statement on Overpayments and Defaults. In all other scenarios, these certifications are incorporated in signing the application: FAFSA, Renewal FAFSA or FAFSA Express Signature Page. See the FAFSA Express section that follows for more information about the software. The FAA Information section appears at the end of the SAR comments and will be printed on the second page (sheet) of Part 1 on a nonrejected SAR, or on the back of page one of a rejected SAR. The FAA Information section for 1997-98 will include a new NSLDS Results Flag, NSLDS Transaction Number, Transaction Receipt Date, and a Reprocessed Reason Code. A detailed description of these flags follows in the Central Processing System section. The National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) Financial Aid History will be printed on the second page of Part 1 of the SAR if relevant NSLDS information for that student is present in the National Student Loan Data System. CENTRAL PROCESSING SYSTEM (CPS) START-UP INFORMATION THE 1997-98 CENTRAL PROCESSING SYSTEM WILL START UP ON JANUARY 10, 1997, AND WE ARE CURRENTLY ON- SCHEDULE IN SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING ACTIVITIES. We do not anticipate any delays. New for 1997-98, both Applications and Corrections processes will become available on the same day. This means that paper FAFSAs and Renewal FAFSAs received by the FAFSA processors will be processed by the CPS, and schools may submit both applications and corrections electronically as soon as the system starts up. The FAFSA processors have made many improvements in their systems to ensure that they will be able to meet required turnaround times for 1997-98. WE ADDED A NEW REJECT (REJECT 4) FOR SITUATIONS WHEN THE REPORTED DATE OF BIRTH IS EQUAL TO THE CURRENT YEAR, TO IMPROVE THE ACCURACY OF DATA MATCHES. Addition of this reject will facilitate more accurate matching with the NSLDS and Social Security Administration (SSA), and will make students more aware of the importance of reporting the birth date accurately. Analysis shows that approximately 9,900 students made this error in 1995-96. REVISED SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION MATCH Beginning with 1997-98 processing, we will handle one of the possible matching situations with the Social Security Administration (SSA) differently. The current Reject S (social security number not found in the SSA database) has been changed to Reject 18, which does not allow a student simply to "verify" that the same SSN is correct. If the student believes the originally reported SSN is actually correct, he or she must follow-up with SSA to determine why the reported SSN is not in the SSA database. The SSA has informed us that it can add an applicant's SSN within a few days after the applicant provides SSA with documentation of a correct SSN. After ensuring that the SSA database is updated, the student in this example may submit a SAR correction with the same SSN re-entered, and eliminate the reject when the match is conducted again with SSA. If the originally reported SSN is NOT correct, the student may submit a SAR correction with the new SSN (current SSN) and when the new SSN is matched with the SSA database, the reject will also be eliminated. However, keep in mind that in both examples, the student's identifiers (the original SSN and first two letters of the last name) will not change when the SSN is corrected on the SAR. This could create problems when the student's record is matched with the Pell Grant Recipient Financial Management System. We recommend that a student who receives Reject 18 and determines that a correction to the originally reported SSN is needed, submit a new FAFSA and start over rather than attempting to correct his or her SSN on the SAR. EDIT FOR WORKSHEET #3 INCOME WE REVISED THE EDITS FOR WORKSHEET #3 INCOME TO IMPROVE ACCURACY. For the student's information (item 64), if the Amount from Line 5, Worksheet #3 is equal to or greater than the sum of the student's AGI, Earned Income Credit, and all Untaxed Income fields, the CPS will assume that the value of Amount from Line 5, Worksheet #3 is zero. However, a student or financial aid administrator may submit a correction using the same value, and the CPS will accept a value that is equal to the student's total income and not make the assumption again. Thus, if a student's entire earnings are derived from taxable work-study income (all of which is excluded from the EFC calculation), the student will receive an accurate EFC on the next transaction. This revision was put in place for 1996-97 and will continue to work in the same way for 1997-98. For the parents' information, the CPS will assume "zero" if the 1996 Amount from Line 5, Worksheet #3 is greater than a fixed percentage of the total income reported by the parents. The parents' income limit was determined by an analysis of reporting behavior in 1996-97. To summarize, the 1996 Amount from Line 5, Worksheet #3, for either student or parents may be corrected to the same value (greater than a percentage of total income for parents and 100% of total income for students) and the assumption will not be made again. The assumption to zero will continue to be made if the reported amount is GREATER than total income. CHANGES TO FAA INFORMATION WE ADDED NEW FLAGS TO IMPROVE THE REPORTING OF NATIONAL STUDENT LOAN DATA SYSTEM (NSLDS) MATCH RESULTS AND CHANGES TO NSLDS DATA. NSLDS RESULTS FLAG. The FAA Information appearing on the SAR and ISIR will include a new "NSLDS Results Flag." This item will display one of four possible values: "1" means that the reported SSN was matched and confirmed with the NSLDS and NSLDS data were sent to the CPS and will appear on the SAR and ISIR. Schools are responsible for using this information when determining eligibility for Title IV aid. "2" means that the student's SSN was found in the NSLDS but the match could not be confirmed using either the name or date of birth. This result will generate comment code #138, informing the student and school that the problem must be resolved before Title IV aid can be paid. See Dear Colleague Letter (GEN-96-13) Q&A #26 for further discussion of this issue. "3" means that the reported SSN was not found in the NSLDS, and a school can assume the student had not received any previous Title IV loans or Pell Grant funds unless the school is aware of conflicting information. "4" means that the reported SSN was found and confirmed in the NSLDS, but there were no relevant data to return to the CPS. For example, the only data in the NSLDS were a prior year's Pell disbursement or one or more loans that had been fully repaid or discharged. NSLDS TRANSACTION NUMBER. We added this flag as a signal to financial aid administrators when something has changed in a student's NSLDS financial aid history, and needs to be reviewed. For example, on the first 1997-98 transaction (01), the NSLDS transaction number will be "1." When an 02 transaction resulting from a correction is processed, the record is matched again with NSLDS. If the NSLDS information for that student is unchanged, the NSLDS transaction number will continue to be reported as "1." If a further correction is processed and an 03 transaction created, current NSLDS information is compared with the previous transaction. If these data are different than the data reported on the earlier transaction, the NSLDS Transaction Number will be set to "3." The value reported as the NSLDS Transaction Number will enable the FAA to determine if NSLDS data on a subsequent transaction needs to be reviewed. In the example above, if the NSLDS data from transaction 01 had been reviewed and used, the FAA would not need to review NSLDS data on the second transaction because the NSLDS Transaction Number of "1" indicated nothing had changed. The FAA would need to review NSLDS data on the 03 transaction because the NSLDS Transaction Number of "3" indicated that data had changed from the earlier transactions. A request from the applicant or a school for a duplicate CPS record is also sent to the NSLDS. If the NSLDS data has not changed, the record will be processed as a duplicate with the same CPS and NSLDS transaction numbers. However, if the NSLDS data are different, the record will be processed as a system-generated correction (Sys Gen = L), and both transaction numbers will be incremented. TRANSACTION RECEIPT DATE. We will display the date that the input for each transaction is received by a FAFSA Processor or the CPS, whether that input is paper or electronic, a subsequent application, or a correction. This date will appear in addition to the "Application Receipt Date," which displays the date that the original (or first) application was received. The Transaction Receipt Date will change for each transaction, but the Application Receipt Date will remain constant. REPROCESSING CODE. This numeric code will be used to provide more specific information about system-generated records. If a subset of student records requires reprocessing, for example, there are changes in the formula or maximum EFC, or problems with NSLDS data for certain students, the Reprocessing Reason Code will appear on the reprocessed records along with the System Generated (Sys Gen) = Z code that identifies a reprocessed batch. This code will be numeric and will be assigned and incremented with each reprocessing. The definition for a code will be available from customer service and announced on the Student Financial Assistance Bulletin Board Service (SFA BBS). SOCIAL SECURITY MATCH Currently, a correction transaction is sent to the SSA match only when the student changes the SSN. Beginning in 1997-98, we will send a student's record for a new match with SSA if the student makes corrections to the SSN, the name, or the date of birth. A new match flag will be generated and reported in the FAA Information section. Once confirmation of all the SSA match elements has been obtained (i.e., SSN, name, and date of birth all match and U.S. citizenship is confirmed), the SSN and citizenship flags will be carried forward to the student's 1998-99 Renewal Application, and the SSA match will not have to be performed each time the student applies for aid. If a student whose match data have been confirmed subsequently attempts to change his or her SSN, the system does not accept the change and generates a comment (comment code #13) advising the student to contact their FAA for assistance. CITIZENSHIP STATUS INFORMATION Also in 1997-98, if a student does not report citizenship status on the application, but the match with SSA confirms that the student is, in fact, a U.S. citizen, we will not reject the application for blank citizenship (Reject 17). If a student indicates that he or she is an eligible noncitizen, provides an Alien Registration Number, and the status is confirmed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) match, we will not show any flag on the student's record for the SSA Citizenship match. Only the appropriate INS match flag will appear in FAA Information on the SAR or ISIR record. FEDERAL STUDENT AID INFORMATION CENTER WILL ENTER ADDRESS AND SCHOOL CHANGES Finally, we have made an important enhancement to our delivery system that will allow students to telephone the Federal Student Aid Information Center (FSAIC) at (319) 337-5665 to request address and institution changes. The student must provide his or her personal Identification Number (PIN) as identification, and the operators will be able to key-enter address changes and school changes on-line for processing by the CPS. After the requested change is processed, the CPS will print and mail the student a new SAR and electronic schools listed on the student's record will receive ISIRs. This procedure will speed processing of two of the most frequent types of corrections that students make. The student's PIN is printed on the student's SAR or SAR Information Acknowledgement, but will not appear on the electronic ISIR or magnetic tape/cartridge ISIRs. For EDExpress, we have enhanced the software beginning with 1996-97 version 2.5 so that an institution can add other institution codes to a student's electronic record without the PIN. FAFSA EXPRESS WE ARE SCHEDULED TO BEGIN DISTRIBUTION OF THE 1997-98 FAFSA EXPRESS SOFTWARE IN DECEMBER. THE SOFTWARE WILL ALSO BE AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOADING FROM THE DEPARTMENT'S WORLD WIDE WEB HOME PAGE BY SYSTEM STARTUP IN JANUARY. Because of problems that some students had in printing complete and accurate signature pages, the 1997-98 software clarifies instructions for configuring a printer and includes a checklist to review whether the signature page has printed out correctly. In addition, the CPS will hold an applicant's data for 14 days rather than 21 days while awaiting a valid signature page. If a valid signature page is not received within 14 days, the CPS will process the application as a Reject 16. If the Signature Page is not expected (the student indicates in the software whether a printer is available), the CPS processes the data immediately and sends the student a Reject 16 SAR for his or her, and a parent's, if applicable, signature. Once a Reject 16 has been produced, the CPS cannot process a signature page printed as part of the FAFSA Express process. Only a signed SAR or EDExpress signature flag will clear the reject. The FAFSA Express software can be downloaded from the Department's World Wide Web home page and installed on a PC with a modem. The home page address for the software is: http://www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/index.html WE MADE A NUMBER OF ENHANCEMENTS TO THE FAFSA EXPRESS SOFTWARE TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR STUDENTS TO USE: Software will allow application data to be saved partially or completely to diskette. The saved file can be used later to complete the application in multiple sessions, and/or transmit data again if first transmission fails; An improved telecommunications interface will configure the modem automatically and facilitate easier use for most students; Downloading and installation from the World Wide Web will be easier; Search options for Title IV Codes will be expanded to allow students to locate codes alphabetically by school name or by state; and Software will be promoted extensively to high schools and colleges, and distributed automatically to Educational Opportunity Centers. TITLE IV SCHOOL CODES Earlier this year, the Department mailed a letter to schools requesting name, address, and Title IV Code updates. These updates were due back to the Department by July 15, 1996. The Title IV School Code book will be published as an Action Letter in November, and mailed to high schools, colleges, and public libraries. Students and schools can also access the Title IV Code List on the Department's home page: http://www.ed.gov/offices/OPE We continue our efforts to improve the application processing system and respond to the concerns and needs that you, our customers, have expressed in focus groups, at conferences, and other forums. Please continue to communicate with us about other system changes you wish to suggest; and also let us know when processes and changes are meeting your needs, so we can better support you in the delivery of aid to your students. Sincerely, Elizabeth M. Hicks Deputy Assistant Secretary for Student Financial Assistance Attachments: FAFSA Renewal FAFSA mockup SAR mockup (with NSLDS page) SAR Information Acknowledgement 1997-98 Verification Worksheets 1997-98 Address/School Change Form 1997-98 SAR Comment Activity for Matches and Hold Files *[Attachements are currently not available for viewing on the BBS, but may be requested by contacting the Student Financial Aid Information Center at 1-800-433-3243.] |